Overview of Papaveraceae
Habit: They are mostly herbs with milky or yellowish latex.
Leaves: The leaves are radical and cauline, simple and alternate, often lobed.
Flowers: These are solitary, often showy, regular, bisexual, and hypogynous.
Calyx: The sepals are typically two or sometimes three, free, caducous.
Corolla: There are petals 2+2 or 3+3, arranged rarely more, in two whorls (rarely three), large, free, rolled or crumpled in the bud, caducous and imbricate.
Androecium: Stamens α, sometimes two or four. They are free.
Gynoecium: The carpels (2- ∞), (4–6) in argemone. It is syncarpous. The ovary is superior, 1-chambered, or spuriously 2- to 4-chambered, with 2-∞ parietal placentae which may project inwards, as in poppy (papaver). The stigmas are distinct or sessile and rayed over the ovary, as in poppy. The ovules are numerous.
Fruit: This is a septicidal capsule dehiscing by or opening by pores. There are many seeds, with oily endosperm.
Floral formula:
Examples: Argemone mexicana, Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), etc.
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